


A Million Little Princes

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Mpreg, mentions of the Regent's grossness, shortfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-08 01:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 6,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7737670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Captive Prince prompts from my Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prompt One: Tragic Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I finished the third volume [of Captive Prince], did you know there's a tragic epilogue where Laurent surprises Damen by wearing sexy lingerie and Damen dies of a stroke"
> 
> Warnings: Major Character Death, Crack

“Damen,” Laurent’s face was very close to his. He was sobbing, Damen realized dully, a display of raw emotion he’d scarcely seen on that lovely, alabaster pale face. “Damen, no, please–”

Slowly, Damen reached up to cup Laurent’s cheek in his hand. Always accused of being frigid, cold, passionless, he found, as he always did, that Laurent’s delicate skin was warm, yielding sweetly to the press of his fingertips.

He drew a ragged breath, felt it stab awkwardly in his lungs, wondered how many more breaths he had in him, now. Surely not many. Surely the end would be soon. He had to hurry; he couldn’t leave Laurent like this, couldn’t leave him in silence and tears spilling darkly on the tiled floor of their room.

Forming the words should be easy by now, effortless, but they came slowly, hesitantly to his lips. For Laurent. For him, beautiful and alone, always alone, the words that he’d wanted to say to him since the moment he’d seen him.

“B-booty… got me like…” Damen croaked, hand going limp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (why did I make this one the first entry?)


	2. Prompt Two: Blindfold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Someone please give me a lil fic abt Damen’s very obvious blindfold kink."
> 
> Warnings: Harmless fluff.

“All right,” Laurent said with a martyred sigh, “where is this surprise of yours?”

“It’s almost ready,” Damen said, somewhere to his left. “Just a moment.”

Laurent resisted the urge to lift the blindfold from his face, instead turning his head to follow the sound of Damen’s footsteps as he moved across the room. “Whatever this is, you must have hidden it remarkably well.”

“Not much gets by you.”

“No, not much.” Laurent crossed his arms. “Very little, in fact. That surprise?”

“I– it’s coming, I’m getting it,” Damen stammered.

There was quiet for some time.

“Damen,” Laurent said finally.

“Yes?”

“There is no surprise.”

“…No.” Sheepish.

“You wanted to find an excuse to blindfold me.”

“W-well I wouldn’t say I–”

“Again.”

A pause, then, “Yes.”

Laurent pulled the blindfold down from his face, trapping his hair against his neck. “This is the fourth time this month.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omake: Laurent retaliates by constantly finding reasons why Damen has to be naked. Oil wrestling tournaments that go on for days. Trips to the seashore for swimming lessons. The mysterious fire that only seemed to affect Damen’s clothing…
> 
> (Not all of these are this silly, I promise)


	3. Prompt Three: Laurent and the Regent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I need the conversation we didn't get in KR, Damen telling Laurent he didn't deserve what the Regent did to him."
> 
> Warnings: Mentions of past abuse, mentions of the Regent's grossness, abuse abuse abuse, also angst.

“I reached out to him, you know,” Laurent was saying quietly, staring into the fire.

Damen looked up. “Hm?”

“When– when Auguste died. My Uncle was all I had left.” Laurent took a breath. “So I went to him, and he let me– he told me he wouldn’t tell anyone, if I had to cry.” The words were coming slowly, painfully, as if each one were forming somewhere deep in Laurent’s chest and he was choking each one up individually, spines and all. “He didn’t seek me out. I went to him. When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I would go to his chambers.”

“Laurent…” Damen reaches out, thinking to put a hand on Laurent’s knee, then hesitates. “You don’t have to–”

“And that’s how it started, only a few weeks after, and I didn’t– he’d been so kind to me, I thought if I pushed him away it would be so ungrateful of me, but–” 

The words are coming closer together, crowding shoulder to shoulder, and Damen abruptly recognizes the panting, the shaking, the trembling that heralds the crumbling of Laurent’s walls, the ones that prop up the yawning chasm of emptiness inside of him, hollowed out by the Regent’s grasping hands.

Damen reaches out, takes Laurent’s right hand, then his left, squeezing them together hard enough to make Laurent wince. “Look at me,” Damen orders, then, more harshly, _“Look at me.”_ And Laurent does, startled at Damen’s tone.

“What that man did to you,” Damen says, holding Laurent in his gaze, “what that vile, slithering offal-smeared pathetic excuse for a man did to you was wrong. It was disgusting. And–” he tightened his grip as Laurent tried to pull away– “it wasn’t your fault.”

“I went to him–”

“You were grieving. He was your only family.”

“I could have left, I should– I should have–”

“You were a child,” Damen says. “He should have been there to protect you. You trusted him and he betrayed that trust. You were a _child_ and he hurt you and it _was not your fault.”_

Laurent stares at him, wide-eyed and silent, chest still heaving with panicked breaths. Then, horribly, his face crumples, his shoulders sag. “Damen–” he begins, and Damen can do nothing but hold him and let him muffle his sobs against his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you wish you could go back to the silly ones now, huh?


	4. Prompt Four: Artistry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "can I have life model Laurent and art student Damen!?????"
> 
> Warnings: Modern AU, A bunch of characters make cameos but that's sort of it. My modern AU Damen is always sort of an idiot, sorry.

She’d said that he was brutish and uncultured; that she was embarrassed to be seen with someone so crass; that the night he’d fallen asleep at the ballet had been the absolute worst night of her life, and that if he didn’t do something to try to improve himself she was going to leave him for Isander, the TA in her Political Science class. _He_ was cultured. He had _vinyl records._

She’d said all of this to Kastor, and Kastor had relayed it to Damen, whom he’d then begged to help him so that Jokaste wouldn’t leave him for an eighteen-year-old hipster. Damen had, reluctantly, agreed. Kastor was his brother, after all, and all he’d have to do was attend a few community center life-drawing sessions, make some sketches, which Kastor would then bring back to Jokaste and pass off as his own. See? Culture! And then Damen could go back to his Pre-Roman History paper and Kastor could go back to his wrestling tournaments and everyone would be happy, including Isander, who he thought might be gay.

Damen borrowed a board and a pad of newsprint paper and some stubby vine charcoal from Erasmus (who’d come to meet him wearing Armani loafers and Gucci shades and an engagement ring with a rock on it that ought to have had its own gravitational pull; Damen had stammeringly congratulated him on his upcoming wedding) and headed to the community center downtown, taking the bus so he wouldn’t have to find parking.

The life-drawing session was taking place in a dingy multipurpose room filled with wobbly folding chairs and the smell of chalk and sweat. Most of the chairs had been pushed against one wall, and all of the paint-spattered easels and horses had already been claimed by other students. Damen glanced around, wondering if he were going to end up leaning his board against his knee, then spotted the telltale blond locks of that bitchy Mathematics major who had been snarking his way through Damen’s Anthropology class for four weeks.

Bitchy, but hot. What was his name?

Laurent. His name was Laurent.

Laurent had shown up to draw in a long cream tunic and black leggings, his hair pulled up into a loose bun. Damen walked over to him, grinning, and Laurent turned to give him a blue-eyed stare that would have been withering if Damen hadn’t been so used to being withered at by Jokaste. “Hey! Anthropology, right?”

“Sure,” Laurent said, turning away again.

“I didn’t know you liked art. You’re a Mathematics major, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” Laurent said again, and Damen could practically see the ice crystals forming on his shoulders. Well, third time’s a charm.

“Didn’t think it would be so crowded,” Damen said. “Share an easel?”

“No,” Laurent said shortly, and walked off. Struck out.

Damen watched him go for a moment, shrugged, then, seeing as Laurent hadn’t claimed the spot with any of his belongings, set his board down on the easel and then looked up again to find Laurent standing at the front of the room, matter-of-factly taking off his clothes.

…Oh.


	5. Prompt Five: Artistry, Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Can we have the inverse: snarky art student Laurent and life model Damen?"
> 
> Warnings: Modern AU, Some Swearing, Damen is Naked

“Our model tonight, Damianos–”

“It’s Damen, please.”

“Right, sorry. Damen’s gonna model for us tonight, you can find his contact info at the back there, go ahead and put your portion of the modeling fee in the glass jar, and the wire basket is for tips. We’re going to start with a twenty-minute pose for warmups, then move on to…”

Laurent had stopped listening some time before– in fact, he’d ceased to be aware of his surroundings at all the moment Damen had come into the room. He knew the man from campus, but as a distant figure, all white smile and brown skin, always surrounded by a giggling group of blond liberal arts majors. It was one thing to catch sight of him across the quad and think that he was handsome in a dopey underwear model sort of way; it was quite another to have him this close, polite and even-voiced and– and _tall,_ and Laurent didn’t want to stare at him because it made his heart pound but he couldn’t look anywhere else because Damen’s stupid huge shoulders seemed to take up all the space in the room.

Damen disappeared behind a screen to change– though his dark curls were still visible peeking over the top of it– and Laurent took the opportunity to shift into a more comfortable position on his horse (legs splayed, hips aching, at least he had his board in front of him and in a pinch he could set his supply box in his lap) and put his earbuds in. He fished out a new stick of charcoal, soft, and rolled his shoulders. VAST came pulsing out of his mp3 player, Damen walked out from behind the screen, and Laurent dropped his charcoal on the tile floor, where it snapped in half.

“Sweet mother of mercy,” Laurent whispered.

“Whassa matter?” Beside him, Nicaise was still sorting through a grubby box of oil pastels, his hair held back in a plastic clip.

“I– I–” Laurent shut his mouth, swallowed, then took a breath and said, “I dropped my _fucking_ charcoal.”

Nicaise rolled his eyes. “Get another one. Don’t be a spaz.”

“Yeah well,” Laurent grunted, leaning over as far as he could, “this stuff isn’t free, I’m not riding on my Uncle’s dime anymore.” He snagged one half of the charcoal between two fingers and straightened up again.

Damen had taken up a pose at the front of the room, one leg propped up on a sheet-draped prop box. Laurent had to look, he had to, and he was sure everyone else was looking, including Nicaise, who elbowed Laurent in the ribs and made an obscene gesture with his hands.

“Twenty minute warm up,” the instructor called, and Laurent forced his eyes upward again, already feeling _very_ warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have, in fact, attended life drawing sessions. You can tell how much I liked them by the fact that I'm a writer now.


	6. Prompt Six: Heatwave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Do you do fluff? How about Damen and Laurent at the summer palace in Ios?"
> 
> Warnings: Fluff, Laurent Being Awkward

_“Get back,”_ Laurent snarled.

Damen didn’t relent, laying himself half atop Laurent’s sprawled body and kissing the back of his neck, slick with sweat. Laurent slithered out from underneath him, writhing across the damp sheets to flop onto a cooler part of the bed. “It’s too hot for that,” he complained.

Damen smirked. “Is that why you haven’t gotten out of bed?”

“Your subjects prefer me clothed.” Laurent rolled over; his usually creamy white skin was flushed pink in the heat.

“I beg to differ.” Damen kissed him again, this time on the small of his back.

_“Stop._ Ugh, you’re hotter than a brazier, how do you stand it?”

“It isn’t that hot. Come swimming with me.”

_“Swimming?”_

“The water down at the beach is cool,” Damen murmured in his ear. “I can teach you to swim.”

“I know how to _swim.”_ He’d been in a fairly deep tub at Chastillion once, anyway. It probably wan’t that different.

“Well, then.” Damen sat up. “Come on. It’ll cool you off.”

Laurent sat up as well, pushing a lock of sweaty hair away from his face. “…What does one… usually wear?” He asked. “To swim?”

Damen laughed. _“Wear?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine this: Laurent sitting down in a leather chair in a chiton and then getting stuck to it because it's so damn hot


	7. Prompt Seven: Not So Perfect Fit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Auguste is alive and tries to set up Damen and Laurent ?"
> 
> Warnings: Auguste is Alive AU, Tiny Laurent Being Snarky

“Just talk to him. You’ll like him.”

“I don’t _like_ him.”

“You haven’t even talked to him!” Auguste ruffled Laurent’s hair. “Damianos of Akielos is a fine man, a fine prince, and he will be a fine king someday.”

“And I his queen?” Laurent said acidly.

“He is also a _brave_ man,” Auguste said. “I fought him at Marlas.”

Laurent made an ugly face. “I know. He nearly killed you.”

“And I treated with him at Marlas, when the battle was over. He laid down his sword when his father would not.”

“Oh, if only he would lay down your little brother the same way!” Laurent sang, then immediately regretted it; Auguste had given him a disappointed look. “I don’t… I know the Akielons aren’t our enemies anymore. And I know Damianos is a good man. But…”

Auguste sat down beside Laurent on the window bench. “But?”

“He’s… very large,” Laurent whispered.

There was a long moment where Auguste had to turn his face away to keep from laughing. When he had regained his composure, he said carefully, “You aren’t finished growing. Father and Grandfather and I are all tall. You won’t be such a little lamb forever.”

“It isn’t his… his height that worries me.”

This time Auguste couldn’t keep himself from laughing. Laurent slapped his arm, face red. “If you wish for him to court me, isn’t it something I should consider?”

“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” Auguste chuckled. “You haven’t even agreed to be in the same room with him yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Prince of Akielos has three legs!


	8. Prompt Eight: Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "for those prompts, anything pallazar?"
> 
> Warnings: Pallas/Lazar, They Probably Had Sex, Pallas Butchers the Veretian Language, Jaydee Butchers Greek, Fluff

“Cold,” Pallas said, hunching down further into the blankets. “Too much be cold.”

“It is very cold,” Lazar corrected lazily, snugging closer to Pallas’ back. Usually Lazar wore woolen nightshirts to fight off the chilly winter nights in Vere, but he hadn’t bothered with one last night, preferring to instead fall asleep with Pallas wrapped around him. Pallas, as always, slept in the nude. This wasn’t usually a problem either, but between last night’s hard freeze and the two of them being too busy to put another log on the dying fire, they had woken to a room so cold that Lazar could see his breath fogging in the air.

“It is very too much cold,” Pallas said, turning in Lazar’s embrace and tucking his head beneath the man’s chin. “Lazar. Fire.”

Lazar snorted. “I know you’re accustomed to ordering slaves around, but you could at least say please.”

“If. You. Please,” Pallas said, punctuating each word with a wiggle of his hips. “Fire now.”

“Ooh, little slut,” Lazar said, nipping Pallas’ earlobe.

_“Xero oti i lexi,”_ Pallas murmured in Akielon. “‘Slut.’”

Lazar smiled. “I know you do.” He kissed Pallas’ ear again, then pulled away from him, wincing at the cold as he slid out of bed. “Mother’s tits, it’s cold.”

“Tits of your mama,” Pallas said from underneath a mound of blankets.

“Pallas, I think it’s snowing,” Lazar said, going to the frosted window and peering out.

“Neesh?”

“Not 'neesh.’ _Neige._ There’s snow on the ground.” He turned, smiling. “Doesn’t snow down in Ios, does it? Have you ever seen snow?”

“Fire,” Pallas said into the pillow. “Neesh later.”

“No, come on, out of bed. We’ll bundle you up. I want you to see it before it goes to slush.” Lazar tugged on the blankets, exposing Pallas’ bare brown skin. “Get up.”

“De-boot,” Pallas grumbled. _“Fire!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't particularly ship Pallas and Lazar but I do really like writing them together. Does that make sense?


	9. Prompt Nine: Elves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Laurent and Damen + cooking misadventures?"
> 
> Warnings: Absolutely Disgusting Fluff, Laurent Being Awkward Again

“Laurent,” Damen said, looking from the red-faced scowl to the smoking pan, “you’re from _Vere,_ Veretian cuisine is _legendary!”_

“I am the _prince_ of Vere, I am generally accustomed to consuming our legendary cuisine, not–” he gestured at the kitchen. “The grunt work.”

“You’ve never cooked before?” Damen demanded incredulously. _“Ever?”_

Laurent shrugged, glancing away. “When I was four years old, Auguste told me that our meals were made by elves, in exchange for gold coins left in the kitchens at night.” He nudged a sloshing bowl of melted brown slurry that had probably been meant to be a mousse. “I believed him until I was ten.”

“Elves,” Damen said flatly.

“If I left gold coins on my dresser, I would wake up to _bichon au citron,”_ Laurent said. “If I left silver I got Madeleines. I didn’t like those as much,” he explained. He watched Damen’s expression for a moment, then said, “Of course I eventually found out it was my brother doing it.”

“Of course,” Damen said, then had to take several steps out of the range of Laurent’s spatula, because he couldn’t help but laugh. “If you’ve any gold coins, maybe you could get those elves to help us clean up this mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Older brothers lie to their siblings. It's just the way it is.


	10. Prompt Ten: Baby Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I just finished the whole of Captive Prince so just, fuck me up."
> 
> Warnings: Mpreg, Jaydee Being a Troll

“Damen,” Laurent panted, leaning against the wall, “I think– I think it’s time.”

Damen looked up. “Time for what?”

_“The baby’s coming,”_ Laurent gasped, doubling over.

_“Baby?!”_ Damen cried, surging to his feet.

Then, abruptly, he woke up, sitting up and leaning far over his lap, gulping in air, hands over his face. Beside him, Laurent stirred, looking up at him. “…Damen…? What’s the matter?”

“I–” Damen raked his hands through his hair. “I had a– a nightmare. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

“A nightmare,” Laurent said, sitting up and laying a hand on Damen’s arm. “About?”

“A-about–” Damen thought quickly. “I dreamt you died,” he blurted. “I dreamt someone came and– and cut off your head.”

Laurent blinked. “Oh.”

“Yes, and it was awful, and I don’t want to talk about it,” Damen said, turning away from him. “I’m– going to go get some fresh air.”

Laurent lay back down. “All right. But go quietly; I don’t want you to wake the baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was just trying to make a joke, but then...


	11. Prompt Eleven: Due Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I lost the original prompt, but it was basically, "more Mpreg." When I asked, "really?" the answer was, "yes, really." So...)
> 
> Warnings: Mpreg, Laurent is Very Cross, Nikandros is Very Alarmed, I had a lot of Laurent/Nikandros feelings but that's a rarepair I'm never gonna see, Fluff and Angst

_Look after him,_ Damen had said before he’d left, though Nikandros was more than sure Laurent didn’t need looking after. Pregnancy had made that man more dangerous, not less, and since Damen had banned him from the training yard a month ago Laurent had stalked the halls of Marlas like a panther, a waddling, sweating, scowling, eight-months-pregnant panther craving blood and salted fish and eclairs and _blood._

But Damen was Nikandros’ closest friend, and his king, and he _had_ promised to return from Ios well before Laurent was due to go into labor. All Nikandros really had to do was make sure that Laurent didn’t cause an international incident by murdering someone because it was too hot. Then Damen would come back and Nikandros could go back to fighting Vaskian raiders, which he honestly preferred.

The best way to look after Laurent in this condition, he’d decided, was to avoid him, which was why when he rounded a corner and found Laurent leaning heavily against a wall, panting with exertion, he automatically took two steps back and out of the man’s line of sight. He started to go back the way he’d come, but then heard Laurent’s low, strained moan of pain, and stopped. Oh. Oh no.

“Laurent,” Nikandros said carefully, stepping forward, carefully as if approaching an animal in a trap. “Laurent, are you all right?”

Laurent was bent nearly double, or as far as he could lean over his hugely swollen belly, both hands on his abdomen, teeth gritted. Every muscle was rigid and trembling, and then it seemed to pass, and Laurent let out a great whoosh of a sigh, sagging. He turned his head slightly as Nikandros came near, one blue eye glaring through a curtain of sweaty hair.

“Laurent,” Nikandros said again, reaching out a hand, but Laurent jerked away from him.

“Go away,” Laurent rasped. “I don’t need your hhh _aaagh–”_ he bent forward again, face contorting in pain. Several long moments later, he lifted his head again. “I don’t need your help,” he said, though the words seemed a little blurred.

Nikandros shook his head, rubbed his face with hands that were suddenly damp with sweat. “The baby. Oh, Gods help me. How long have you been like this? I have to get Paschal– no, he’s gone to town, he won’t be back until– okay, we can do this, it–” he squared his shoulders. “We can do this. I’ve helped birth a calf before, it can’t be so much different.”

The look Laurent gave him should have melted the flesh from his bones. And might have, if it weren’t interrupted by another contraction, far too close to the last for this to be just the beginnings of a long labor. Laurent must have been like this for hours, must have been biting his lip against cries of pain for hours. Why had he come out here, to risk having to lay down and give birth in the hallway?

Nikandros took Laurent’s arm to steady him, had the limb jerked from his grasp, and took it again, more firmly. “I’ve got you,” he said, a bit uselessly, because Laurent refused to lean on him. “Your contractions are so close together, it won’t be long now, we’ve got to get you into–” and he thanked the stars that he hadn’t said ‘the barn’– “a bed, make you comfortable. It won’t be long, I promise you, it will be so easy, and then you–”

“He was supposed to be here,” Laurent said, in a tight little voice. He was staring at the opposite wall. “He promised.”

Damen wasn’t supposed to even leave Ios for another three days; he wasn’t due back for another week, and that was supposed to have been in plenty of time for the birth, which Paschal had said would be in two weeks. Damen hadn’t wanted to go, Nik knew, hadn’t wanted to leave Laurent, but a king couldn’t very well ignore his duties and Laurent was in no condition to travel. They’d hoped there would still be time. They’d all hoped. But babies came in their own time, no sooner and no later, as much as Nikandros wished the little prince could have waited.

“He isn’t here,” Nikandros agreed. “But I am here instead. I won’t let you do this alone.”

Laurent looked up at him again, expression unreadable. They gazed at each other for a long moment, and then Laurent nodded.

They were too far from the royal apartments for Nikandros to take Laurent back there. He was surprised Laurent had even managed to get this far after his water had broken and the contractions had started. With the help of two maids and one very white-faced page boy, Laurent was taken to a small room that had once been a storage room and was now slaves’ quarters, though the few men and women that remained there were under paid contracts according to the laws King Damianos had ordered put into place.

Laurent was laid down among delicate screens and silk hangings, which Nikandros hurriedly dragged closer for privacy. Someone had gone to get one of the fort physicians, and one of the slaves was busy pumping buckets of water and finding clean towels. Nikandros sat by Laurent’s side, holding his hand, trying not to wince as his fingers were crushed. Laurent’s panting breaths had taken on a sort of helpless quality and Nikandros was afraid he might scream and wasn’t sure if he could bear it, so he stroked the man’s hair away from his face and said, “Look at me. Look only at me. Your prince is coming, Laurent, he’ll be here soon and he’ll need a name. What will you name him?”

Laurent swallowed, staring up at the ceiling, face white. “Auguste,” he said faintly. “Damen and I… agreed. I want him to be… as good a prince. As good a man as he was.”

“That’s a fine name,” Nikandros grinned, though privately he thought ‘Nikandros’ was a much stronger-sounding one. Perhaps for the next son. “You’ll teach him languages and strategy. And swordplay and riding. Damen will wrestle with him and I will– I will teach him to climb his first tree. A small one,” he said, squeezing Laurent’s hand. “Damen will come here and see what you have made together and he will be so happy, he’ll be so full of joy that he’ll burst.”

“Another push,” the physician said, head bent over his work. “Just one more, as hard as you can–”

Laurent clenched his teeth and shut his eyes; Nikandros whispered and then shouted encouragements and praises and then congratulations as a baby’s cries filled the room. Laurent sank back down among the cushions, eyes glazed, and Nikandros couldn’t help but crane his neck to get his first glimpse of the child, dark red and squirming, a head of curly dark hair slicked to its scalp. With Laurent still panting, the physician offered the baby to Nikandros, who tried not to startle as he took the tiny thing in his arms. “It’s–?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“Perfectly healthy,” the physician said, smiling. “Congratulations, Your Majesty.”

“My baby,” Laurent gasped. “Please, give him to me. I want to see him.”

“She’s lovely,” Nikandros said as Laurent sat up. “A tiny, beautiful little princess.” He took a breath. “A queen of two kingdoms.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (They end up naming her "Marie.")


	12. Prompt Twelve: A Slave Named Ravenel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Role reversal? The Regent ships Laurent off to Akielos as a slave. I always thought he'd have enjoyed that even more than the scheme he set up, with Damen being sent to Laurent."
> 
> Warnings: Slavery, Angst, Role Reversal AU

It was the hair Damen noticed first, not the eyes.

Butter-blond, swept back from his forehead into a sapphire clasp at the back of his neck. Someone had taken great pains to comb it straight and gleaming, but the heat and humidity of the summer capitol had already taken its toll and a single strand had escaped the clasp, curling softly forward like a crooked finger, beckoning him closer.

And his skin, white as cream and as smooth, flushing pink now in the heat. If the slave had truly come all the way from the North of Vere, as the ambassador had claimed, he must have been shaded from the sun the entire way. The slave had not a freckle on him; he looked as if he’d been carved from marble.

“His Majesty King Louis De Vere hopes you’ll be pleased with this modest gift,” Guion was saying, though Damen could hardly take his eyes off of the slave on his knees before him, clothed in silk and chained in gold. “Twenty-four slaves, including this, chosen for your Maj– er, Exalted’s particular tastes.”

Something a bit less fine than silk had been hastily stuffed into the slave’s mouth, tied tightly behind his head. "He’s gagged,“ Damen said.

"Untrained, even slaves of this quality can be a bit… coarse,” Guion said, mouth quirking up in a smile. “And he bites. His Majesty thought it would amuse you to train him yourself. You have a reputation as a leader of men.”

Damen crouched down, reaching out to tip the slave’s chin up, and found himself pinned by a chilly, blue-eyed glare. Used to the demurely lowered lashes of Akielon palace slaves, Damen saw something different in those eyes, something hard and determined, a seasoned soldier’s calculating gaze. Skin of a milkmaid and eyes of a killer.

A quick glance told Damen that the slave’s chained wrists and ankles were as pale and unblemished as the rest of him: he’d come a long way, and had never struggled enough to chafe the skin there. Had he known it would be futile? Maybe he was waiting for a better way to escape.

“Does he have a name?” Damen asked, standing up again.

“You may name him whatever you’d like, Exalted,” Guion said, “but His Majesty the King would be pleased if you called him Ravenel.”

“After the fort ceded to Akielos in the treaty,” Damen said, turning his own calculating gaze on Guion. “And where his nephew Prince Laurent de Vere was slain.”

The slave’s head jerked up, body tensing, but Guion stepped forward to guide Damen back down the hall. Damen allowed himself to be led, but didn’t miss the way the slave’s eyes followed them, and wondered what sorts of gears were turning inside that blond head. “A turning point for both our countries,” Guion said. “My King recognizes that the path ahead will be difficult for all of us, but, like your training of the slave, ultimately rewarding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to continue this one, but I could only get so far into the narrative without having to re-write the entire trilogy (which I have neither the time nor the patience for) as a different set of books altogether. So you can just imagine how things go :)


	13. Prompt Thirteen: Covet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I read Snakebite, and see you had a Laurent/Nikandros thought. So ... how would that thought work? But no cheating with Damen/Laurent/Nikandros, lol."
> 
> (I cheated a little.)
> 
> Warnings: Semi-nsfw Flowery Descriptions of Threesome Sex, Unrequited Lust, Laurent/Nikandros is the rarest of rarepairs

There was an old god whose ruined temple Nikandros had gone to visit once, as a boy, far to the South of his home in Delfa. A god that had one head but two faces, one smiling, the other grimacing. At the time he'd thought it strange, but knowing Laurent, he was beginning to understand how a creature like that could exist.

It had taken much coaxing, and much coaching, but Damen had finally managed to bring both his lovers to bed with him one crisp fall night. He wasn't sure what Damen had said to Laurent, but Nikandros had spent the better part of an hour listening to Damen instruct him in what he must or mustn't do with the Veretian king. 

Nikandros had had very little interest in actually being intimate with that viper, but Damen had pleaded, had promised the night would be wonderful and that Laurent himself was wonderful and pure and good and a great deal of other things that Nikandros was very sure he wasn't. Still, one couldn't go near a group of soldiers these days without hearing someone loudly discussing Laurent's supposed sexual prowess; he had to wonder what all the fuss was about.

That night in the fall, in Damen's chambers with an aromatic breeze wafting through screened windows, Nikandros had arrived expecting at the very least to be bitten somewhere painful. Instead, with a pale body stretched out between them and Damen's murmurs of _gently, gently, it's all right, slowly, that's just how he likes it,_ Nikandros had been introduced to someone entirely new. Not the hard-edged Veretian killer, nor the cold and calculating strategist that gambled with men's lives, but the man Damen had fallen in love with, sighing sweetly and turning his head to one side as Nikandros laid kisses across trembling white skin.

That had been the first time, but hardly the last. Nikandros was invited back often to share with them, but just as often he wasn't, and he would catch himself watching Laurent from across the training yard, wondering if he had been with Damen the night before, if his back had arched and his fingers curled, if he had come, as Nikandros vividly remembered, with eyes open, mouth open, cheeks flushed, voice shaking.

No matter how often he had it, Nikandros found himself wanting it again. Wanting it for himself. But the first time he'd approached Laurent on his own, laying a friendly hand on the man's back, he'd encountered a tension as hard as marble and an expression glittering and sharp as an icicle. Gone was the rose-lipped youth who had moaned and shivered under Nikandros' touch, replaced with-- this, a man who had people flogged to death as a public spectacle. Laurent had stepped smartly out of his reach, and Nikandros hadn't pursued him.

Two faces, one turned inwards, the other snarling outwards. Noble Damen managed to love both. That Nikandros couldn't bear Laurent's sourness in order to be rewarded with his sweetness made him feel common and low. That didn't stop him from dallying with every blonde courtier in Marlas, wishing each were a golden-lashed lover that didn't belong to him, that would never belong to him.

A spring storm was lashing at the tumbled stone walls of the double-faced god's temple when Nikandros returned there. He went to his knees, alone, and gazed up at both faces, wishing he had never seen either of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe if I wish hard enough more people will start shipping this with me.


	14. Prompt Fourteen: A Slave Called Ravenel (part two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Against all reason, I've written a partial continuation of the Captive Prince Role Reversal AU prompt that a lot of people seem to have liked. I have no idea why, because I can't push it much farther than this without drafting an entirely new plotline and character dynamics to make this thing work, and I am too lazy to do that, not to mention I've got the frillion other original projects I haven't so much as glanced at in weeks, lol.
> 
> Warnings: Role Reversal AU, Slavery, Rape Mention, This Is A Book One Fic So Damen is Pretty Pro-Slavery

It was hours before Damen was able to return to his chambers. He'd endured hours of Guion's Veretian corkscrew thinking and political posturing, had sat next to the man at an interminable dinner, hardly able to pay any attention to the doe-eyed slave serving him his meal. He'd stared into the dark depths of his wine glass, listening to the soft melodies of his favorite ballads ruined by Guion's awful droning, and could think only of the blond slave kneeling on the marble, glaring up at him with the eyes of a caged animal.

There were three slaves awaiting him when he came to bed: fair Lykaios, a freckled slave named Metis, and, kneeling on the floor with his wrists and ankles still bound behind him, the blond slave Guion had asked be called 'Ravenel.' 

He was a bit less carefully groomed than the last time Damen had seen him-- his once gleaming blond hair now hung tangled to his shoulders, the sapphire clasp dangling forgotten in the back. Someone had attempted to paint his face, but had only managed one eye and part of a cheek, with the rest smeared down across his neck and jaw. Even the gag was askew, having apparently been removed and then tied hastily back on, tightly enough that Damen could see two rows of white teeth clenched around it. The only decent bit of ornamentation was a wide gold band clasped to the slave's upper arm.

Damen found the corner of his mouth quirking up in a wry smile. The very best the King of Vere could offer, for certain.

"Adrastus had a great deal to say about you," Damen said, coming to stand before the slave. Ravenel didn't even look up at him, choosing instead to study first the door to the outer chambers, then the screened window. "He told me you bit two of your handlers and nearly knocked the teeth out of a third while they were preparing you to serve me. He said that you lay as limp as a drowned kitten until he let his guard down and then you knocked him flat when you tried to escape. He said that you made it all the way to the outer garden, and that it took five palace guards to bring you back and bind your hands and feet again."

Ravenel flicked a glance up at him, then away, disinterested. Damen grinned. 

Lykaios had a kithara in her lap and was nervously plucking out a familiar tune, but her eyes kept straying to Ravenel, bound on the floor, and her fingers would falter for a moment. Metis had been sitting on the bed, but Ravenel's cold gaze had only had to sweep past him to make him move closer to the door, biting his lip nervously. Damen dismissed them both, watched them skitter gratefully to safety, and shut the door.

Alone with the slave. Damen turned and watched Ravenel's eyes go from Damen, to the door, to the bed, to the window. He held himself very still, knees red from kneeling, but Damen could see the tension singing beneath his silk garments.

"I know you aren't a slave," Damen said, moving across the room to where servants had left several trays of food, as well as a pitcher of wine and another, smaller pitcher of drug-dosed fruit juice, congealing pink around the rim. Two cups had been provided: one tall and gilded, the other plainer, squat and made of plain ceramic. Damen filled both. "Or rather, you weren't until recently. Guion told me himself you'd never been trained. In that, at least." 

He dragged a chair closer to Ravenel's place on the floor and sat in it, one cup balanced on each knee. "I can see you watching the exits. And a slave on the run might have tried to escape the way he was brought in, but not if he knew he'd be trying to dodge guards the entire way. Instead, you went to the gardens, where there were plenty of places to hide and a chance to get over the wall. Too bad you're so easy to spot."

Ravenel looked up at him, silent, expression unreadable.

"If you've had that gag in all day, I imagine you've gotten awfully thirsty," Damen said in a different tone, then set both cups aside and leaned foward. "I'm going to remove your gag. You can imagine how cross I'll be if you try to bite me. And the guards outside won't have much of a sense of humor over you laying hands on the King, either."

Ravenel stared hard at him for a moment, then actually bent his neck, presenting the knot tied at the back of his head and the awkwardly dangling sapphire clasp. Damen untangled the clasp first, indulging in the feel of blond curls against his fingers, then untied the gag and let it fall, sodden, to the marble floor. 

The slave raised his head again, and Damen watched a pink tongue dart out to moisten chapped lips before the perfect rosebud of a mouth opened to say, "Do all Akielons prefer privacy while they rape their captives, or is it only royalty?"

It was Damen's turn to stare. "I'm not going to _rape_ you."

"Aren't you? Your servants seemed to think otherwise. In fact, five armed guards argued with each other over my head over whether you'd be angry at them for helping you _break me in,_ so to speak. I assume that meant fucking me, but I may have been wrong. Akielon isn't my first language."

Damen didn't really think any of his guards would harm a slave destined for the King's chambers, but with Ravenel's coloring, and all the trouble he'd caused, the temptation had to have been great. "If you hadn't tried to run, they wouldn't have held you down," he pointed out.

"I'm sorry, the proper word _is_ 'stop,' isn't it?" Ravenel asked. "None of your servants paid me any heed. Again, my fluency in your language leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps it's my accent."

"A slave will always be better off following orders," Damen said, beginning to wish he hadn't taken the gag off. "Do what they ask of you, and there won't be any trouble."

"I imagine that's so much easier to say when you aren't the one in chains," Ravenel muttered.

Damen rolled his eyes. "Are you thirsty, or aren't you? If I wanted to be sniped at, I could always re-tie your gag and find Jokaste."

There was a pause as Ravenel looked over at the cups. In a strange sort of voice, he said, "I don't... drink wine."

"I don't think you'd care for the other refreshment provided." 

"No, I don't think I would. I suppose if there isn't anything else," Ravenel conceded, as if he were a prince with a fussy palate and not a slave kneeling bound in a stranger's bedchamber.

Damen picked up the smaller of the two cups, leaning forward again to offer it to Ravenel, who leaned back out of the way, wary. Damen let out a sigh of frustration, leaning his elbow on his knee. /"Now/ what? Did you want the better cup?"

"Aren't you going to untie me?" Ravenel asked.

"Of course not," Damen laughed. "The last person stupid enough to untie you is still picking his teeth up off of the tiles in the slave baths. You'll drink this way or not at all. When you see Adrastus later you can brag that you were served from the hand of the King himself."

Another tense moment passed; Damen watched Ravenel consider his options. Then, "All right. But hold it steady, I don't want you spilling it all over me."

"Certainly not, your highness," Damen smirked, and put the cup to Ravenel's lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I don't write Laurent very well, I have no idea if he'd actually resort to biting people. But it'd be funny if he did.


	15. Prompt Fifteen: Chatterbox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Appealing to your Nikandros/Laurent feelings - how about that AU mentioned in PG, with Laurent winding up Nikandros' prisoner and causing endless trouble for him?"
> 
> Now you're MY prisoner! And I'm never letting you GOOOOOO!
> 
> Warnings: I Think the Kiddos Call it Canon Divergence, Laurent's Dirty Mouth, A Whiff of Incest I Guess

“Those two,” Laurent said boredly, leaning his chin on one hand and using the other to point at two soldiers near the edge of the training field, “are fucking.”

Nikandros closed his eyes for a moment, setting his jaw. He knew he shouldn’t rise to the bait, but, “Aetes and Aktis are like brothers. They grew up together just North of Ios. They aren’t _fucking.”_

“Aetes is the stocky one, right? The man walks like he has a third leg and Aktis walks like he’s had it up his ass. Look at them. I’ve only been watching them for an hour, if you’ve really known them for so long you ought to have caught on by now.”

“Aktis fell off his horse two days ago–”

“Onto Aetes’ cock?” Laurent asked sweetly, shifting position so that the chains wrapped around his wrists clanked. “Do you walk around with your eyes closed? Or did you think all the moaning coming from the camps at night was Akielon wildlife?”

“Shut _up,”_ Nikandros said, teeth clenched. He didn’t want to look over at Aetes and Aktis again, but couldn’t help it. Aktis was leaning over to splash water out of a rain barrel onto his face; Aetes had a friendly hand on the man’s back, rather low.

“At least they’re trying to be stealthy about it. Leodes and his little friend Thessalos, on the other hand–”

“That is his _cousin!”_

“Oh, dear. How royal of them. First cousin or second cousin?”

Nikandros stood up. “I am going to have you gagged.”

“You ought to do Thessalos first,” Laurent called as Nikandros stalked away. “He makes the most horrible mewling sound, sort of a _‘eeenh eeenh eeenh’_ and I can only imagine–”

“Take him to the edge of camp where he can’t harass anyone,” Nikandros was saying to one of his men, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily. “And you’d better find something to stuff into his mouth if you value your sanity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know where Damen is for this. Maybe he tried to take off a Veretian shirt by himself and has been tangled in laces for two months


End file.
